Bill Holen, a current Arapahoe County commissioner, greets then-presidential candidate John Kerry at Denver International Airport in 2004. (Denver Post file photo)

Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley announced his list of top Colorado campaign leaders earlier this week and one endorsement stood out: Arapahoe County Commissioner Bill Holen.

The problem is that Holen is listed as a co-host for a Hillary Clinton event Nov. 12 in Aurora. The miscue highlights a small indication of how Clinton is working to consolidate support among Democratic activists.

Democratic presidential candidate and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, right, speaks with Sandy and Lonnie Phillips during a news conference to curb gun violence the day after the Democratic debate in Las Vegas. The Phillips’ daughter Jessica Ghawi was gunned down in the 2012 Aurora, Colo., movie theater shooting.. (AP Photo/Ronda Churchill)

The call this week from the Democratic debate stage for stricter gun laws invoked the name of Aurora theater shooting victim Jessica Ghawi. In the CNN debate audience in Las Vegas, her mother, Sandy Phillips, sat shocked.

“To get a shout out from the stage — finally, finally, finally a shout out — to really open this debate about gun violence prevention, it was astounding,” Phillips said in an interview the next day.

Sandy and Lonnie Phillips attended the Tuesday debate as guests of Democratic candidate Martin O’Malley, the former Maryland governor. And the next day, they appeared on national TV interviews and stood next to O’Malley at a rally in which the candidate called for the end to legal immunity for gun dealers.

Former Colorado Gov. Dick Lamm is expressing concern about Hillary Clinton’s candidacy amid the controversy about her handling of classified emails as secretary of state — suggesting there is a good chance it gets worse and costs her the Democratic nomination.

In reading a recent New Yorker piece about how retired Army Gen. David Petraeus and former Bill Clinton aide Sandy Berger pleaded to misdemeanors for divulging classified information, Lamm said “all the sudden it dawned on me — there’s an FBI study out there.”

The three-term governor and his wife, Dottie Lamm, are close to the Clintons. Though often outspoken, the Democrat’s thoughts on the race offer an insight into the nervousness among party’s leaders regarding the 2016 election.

“What are they to do? My poor wife. We’ve know the Clintons — we’ve served with the Clintons. Dottie and Hillary are really very close and she’s just shattered,” Lamm said in a recent interview with The Denver Post, published in Sunday’s edition. He quickly added that his wife is “not discouraged” and “still very much on board.”

Asked if Hillary Clinton can win, Lamm said: “I think she can win the Democratic nomination unless something worse happens, and I think there’s a one in three chance that something worse does happen.”Read more…

Thirty years after Paul Weissmann and Martin O’Malley traveled the back roads of Iowa for Colorado’s Gary Hart, the two are reunited on another presidential campaign.

This time the candidate is O’Malley, the former Maryland governor, and Weissmann is serving as a close adviser, once again mining the Iowa cornfields for votes and running the campaign’s Colorado effort.

Last week, O’Malley made his second trip to Denver in five months to raise campaign cash and attend a roundtable on marijuana. He also met with Gov. John Hickenlooper in what his office called a “social visit.”

Weissmann, the Boulder County Treasurer and former Colorado House majority leader was at O’Malley’s side for much of the trip.

Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, greets supporters Saturday during a visit to his Iowa campaign headquarters. Sanders began a three-day campaign trip to Iowa Friday with a visit to Drake University where he was greeted by a standing-room-only crowd. He is scheduled to visit Denver next Saturday. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

UPDATE:As of 7 p.m. Monday, nearly 4,000 people had RSVP’d for a weekend at Bernie’s.

President hopeful Bernie Sanders, a long shot presidential candidate who has fired up voters on the left, is scheduled to visit Denver in one week.

The Vermont senator plans to talk on how to get big money out of politics (good luck on that one), obscene wealth and income equality, climate change and making college affordable.

Sanders’ campaign website shows he will speak from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m., Saturday, June 20, at the University of Denver’s Ritchie Center. The website also has a link to RSVP to the event.

Gov. John Hickenlooper continues to be mentioned for a national post, despite his dismissals. (Lewis Geyer/Times-Call)

The 2016 race for the White House is well underway in the early nominating states as new candidates enter seemingly every day and others join the short-list for vice president or administration posts.

So let’s say you’re a governor — for instance, Colorado’s John Hickenlooper — and you’re part of the conversation for president, vice president, cabinet post, ambassadorship, whatever. What’s your next move?

Well, it seems that Hickenlooper is taking all the right steps:

1) Hold political cards.Check. Colorado is one of the top swing states in the nation. And Hickenlooper is not your typical Democrat, with his pro-energy and pro-business background.2) Raise your profile.Check. Hickenlooper is the president of the bipartisan National Governors Association and recently traveled coast-to-coast to attend high-profile events.3) Hob-nob with big money and media powerbrokers.Check. As part of his recent trip, Hickenlooper attended the White House Correspondents Association dinner in Washington as the guest of Reuters and days later appeared at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles, a gathering of Wall Street and financial leaders. He also traveled to Switzerland for the World Economic Forum in Davos.4) Court the top candidates.Check. Hickenlooper is an ally of former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and took him to the General Assembly’s big sine die party the night the legislative session closed. He has also met with the Hillary Clinton camp.5) Speak to influential groups.Check. In addition to many other big events, Hickenlooper addressed the American Federation of Teachers national conference Friday morning in Denver, in which he mentioned 2016, saying the election has “the potential to change the dynamics of this country.”6) Write a glowing memoir.Check. Hickenlooper will co-author a book about his life with his senior media adviser Max Potter, who is leaving the office to focus on the project. Hickenlooper even evoked the book title in his address to the teachers.

But in an interview Friday with The Denver Post, the governor said that he’s not interested, despite the signs.

Former Colorado U.S. Sen. Gary Hart, a Democrat. (Special to the Post.)

In a wide-ranging interview, former Colorado Sen. Gary Hart said he believes Hillary Clinton needs a primary opponent to force her to focus on the issues, the campaign finance environment has “sullied the political process,” leading to political dynasties, and nearly all the GOP potential candidates in 2016 aren’t qualified to be president.

Hart, also didn’t spare criticism of U.S. Senate where he served two terms in the 1970s and 1980s, saying it is “degrees lower in quality, person to person.”

The Democrat, who twice ran for president, expressed his opinions on the 2016 presidential race and other issues in an interview with Politico. He also discussed two Democrats whose names keep coming up in connection with 2016: U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, a former Hart staffer.

Some of what Hart told Politico:

“I like Hillary Clinton. I really appreciate what she and her husband have done … but we need new leaders.”

“If you’ve got to have a billion dollars to run for president, how many people can do that? Only the Clintons and the Bushes and one or two others.”

Obama “had a depth of feeling, understanding and thoughtfulness that very few political leaders had.”

The only potential hopeful who wants to bring the GOP back to a more inclusive, mainstream party is former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush — “but here we go with the dynasties again.”

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley attended a day’s worth of campaign events and fundraisers for Colorado Democrats — including a couple of the same candidates Clinton appeared with at her event.

The two essentially orbited the same Denver political planet but didn’t cross paths. O’Malley helped raise money for 6th Congressional District candidate Andrew Romanoff, the former state House speaker, and connected with Gov. John Hickenlooper, a close friend, among other events.

O’Malley is the former chairman of the Democratic Governors Association and the current fundraising leader. Hickenlooper is the group’s current vice-chairman.

Wearing a Romanoff sticker, O’Malley ended the day at a small-dollar state Democratic Party fundraiser at Epic Brewing in Denver. The event celebrated Party Chairman Rick Palacio’s upcoming birthday.

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock, shown here last year for a Denver Broncos rally before a playoff game.

UPDATE: Hancock must also do the Ray Lewis dance. If you’re not sure what that is – Google it. Let’s just say this will be interesting.

It’s a swap of crab cakes and steaks.

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock and Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake have ventured into the oh so popular terrain of … “wagers between politicians who represent areas that have teams in the NFL playoffs.”

If the Broncos win (which my colleague Tim Hoover has noted is likely), then Rawlings-Blake ships a platter of broiled crab cakes from J. W. Faidley Seafood in Baltimore’s historic Lexington Market. On the flip side, if the Ravens come out victorious, Hancock will send a box of dry aged “cowboy cut” rib eye steaks from Lombardi Brothers Meats.

“Denver is looking forward to an exciting game with the Ravens, and I expect an Orange Wave to come out on top at the end of the fourth quarter,” Hancock said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Rawlings-Blake said in a statement that “for five consecutive years, our Ravens have made the playoffs with an increasingly potent offense and historically dominant defense … I am excited to watch them win another game on the road to the Super Bowl.”

Hickenlooper was elected vice-chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, the group announced today. Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin was elected as chairman of the organization while Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley – the previous DGA chairman – was chosen as the group’s finance chair.

“As governors, our most important work continues to be creating jobs and expanding opportunity in our states,” Hickenlooper said in a statement. “I’m proud to be able to serve my colleagues as vice chair. This is a great opportunity to showcase the good work happening in Colorado and other states with Democratic governors.”

Joey Bunch has been a reporter for 28 years, including the last 12 at The Denver Post. For various newspapers he has covered the environment, water issues, politics, civil rights, sports and the casino industry.